Cops in North Carolina have intensified their search for a man who is accused of shooting a six-year-old girl and her father after their basketball rolled into his yard, the BBC said in a report.
Two other victims were also injured. The 24-year-old suspect, Robert Louis Singletary, remains at large. Singletary faces four counts of first-degree attempted murder. He has also been charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon.
Singletary has been classified as a felon because he allegedly assaulted his girlfriend with a sledgehammer in December.
The police received a 911 call reporting the shooting on Tuesday evening and later said that a six-year-old child and her father were seriously injured. A bullet grazed an adult female and another adult male were shot, the BBC said.
Speaking to the BBC, the neighbours of Singletary said the shooting happened after a basketball rolled into his yard. “We never expected anybody would break a gun out amongst all those kids. They were playing basketball, and a ball rolled into his yard. They went to go and get it. It was just crazy,” neighbour Jonathan Robertson, who lives in Gaston County, was quoted as saying by the BBC.
The cops said Singletary went inside his home and came out with a gun and started firing at neighbours. Parents rushed to gather their children and it was during this rush the six-year-old and her father were struck.
The six-year-old told news outlet ABC News that the “bullet came back and the bullet went in my cheek”. The child’s father was treated for a punctured lung and liver problems.
Gaston County police chief Chief Stephen Zill said violence of this scale will not be tolerated. “We conducted a large-scale search overnight for Mr. Singletary and we have partnered with the United States Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force to aid us as we continue to search,” Zill was quoted as saying by the BBC.
The shooting comes after the shooting of 16-year-old Ralph Yarl in Missouri, who was shot when he rang the doorbell at the wrong address last Thursday. 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis of New York state was shot and killed on Saturday after a friend drove their car down the wrong driveway.
18-year-old Payton Washington of Texas was shot earlier this Tuesday because she mistakenly tried to enter the wrong vehicle in a parking lot near Austin, the BBC said in a report.
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